Prominent UK attorneys have issued warnings about a political “downward spiral”, after a Tory lawmaker seen as a potential leadership candidate suggested that large numbers of lawfully resident households must be deported.
Controversial Statement on Legal Status
The MP, a shadow Home Office minister and a Tory whip, remarked that individuals with legal status in the UK should have their right to stay cancelled, to ensure the UK remains predominantly “culturally uniform”. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, later distanced herself from Lam’s statement last Thursday.
While the leader initially said the remarks were “broadly in line” with official stance, she later reverted to existing policy that only withdraw permanent residency status if someone has committed a crime. Nevertheless, the proposal has raised alarms for many as a signal of “perilous periods” and part of a broader political conversation.
Growing Trend of Immigration Criticism
In the past few months, leaders across various groups have absorbed anti-immigration language and echoed policies that were once considered fringe. Lately, a Reform UK leader expressed dissatisfaction about “numerous advertisements” seemingly featuring “ethnic minorities”, and in September, the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, pledged to abolish the main route for migrants to obtain British citizenship.
Earlier this year, Keir Starmer said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without stricter border controls.
“I don’t accept that the implications of that statement were not comprehended, and it was targeting a particular audience,” said Martin Forde KC, who has investigated claims of discrimination within Labour.
Forde, whose family migrated from the Caribbean, said Lam’s comments were a barely concealed keep Britain white campaign”. The legal expert said the present political debate was an “absolute indictment” that someone like himself, from multiple generations of people who had contributed to the country, should still experience anxiety.
“We’re in a downward spiral,” continued Forde. “It’s alarming to see the opposition feeling the only answer to the rival party is to try and out-Reform Reform, rather than actually talk about the benefits of immigration.
“The language has to evolve and has to be truthful.”
National Mood and Extremist Movements
Support for Reform has surged in the surveys, and far-right marches have attracted large crowds to London, leaving many minority ethnic Britons feeling the situation are similar to extremist rallies from decades past and fearful the UK is “going backwards” as elected officials focus on migrants.
“We’re in very dangerous times,” said Jacqueline McKenzie, who has represented hundreds of affected individuals at the heart of the residency controversy, in which UK citizens from the former empire living in the UK lawfully were classed wrongly as unauthorized immigrants.
McKenzie said her parent, who emigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1951, would be deeply disturbed over the current discourse. Recently, her child has asked whether they should get Caribbean passports.
“Now we’re getting young people in their 20s and 30s who have got two generations ahead of them, UK-born, feeling less than,” said McKenzie.
“These are extremely hazardous times where anti-immigrant fervour is being seen as a acceptable political direction for many groups,” she continued. “The tenets of this, the reach of it extend widely when you start talking about deporting and expelling people who are lawfully resident, and millions of them as well. That’s something very different, isn’t it?”
Individual Consequences
Individuals with ILR status, or with partners who hold this status, have expressed that the new proposals suggested by political figures have left them feeling uncertain in the UK, and described the wider political debate as racist, frightening and unwelcoming.
Ramzi Darwazeh, a dual British-Jordanian citizen living in the city with his family, said the growing support of Reform in the polls had pushed him to get his UK passport. For the past six years he has gone through the process of securing ILR – at a huge financial cost – after moving to the UK on a marriage permit. Should the proposed policies be enacted, he worries his family would be split up.
“It’s easy for someone to say now, well, that will never happen,” said Darwazeh, in his thirties. “It’s uncertain how this unfolds in two, three years.”
While in daily life, he has “no problems”, Darwazeh has been alarmed by the proliferation of St George’s flags in his area, a trend that has been widely co-opted by the far-right and anti-immigration protesters. In the future, though the family has no wish to leave, they may think about it if the hostility persists.
“It’s strange that in a country where immigrants are needed, nobody is promoting a beneficial narrative about immigration at all,” he added. “I consider the demonisation very peculiar and terrifying, for the future.”
